Every year we like to take a look at the state of mobile usage around the world, what platforms dominate in each country and how this has changed over time. The last 12 months have seen some interesting changes in the mobile landscape with Android being the biggest winner and Nokia the biggest loser. In the UK BlackBerry continues to hold on for dear life as it slips from 2nd into 3rd position, dropping 11 percentage points over the last 12 months. Read More »

It is months late, but today Research In Motion has finally launched its BlackBerry 10 operating system and changed its name officially to BlackBerry. The phone maker officially announced it is changing its name from Research in Motion to Blackberry as it launched its new phones this afternoon. Chief executive Thorsten Heins introduced two new BlackBerry phones the Q10 with its traditional Qwerty keyboard, and the touch screen Z10. Read More »

Some tech writers have been getting a little frothy about Research in Motion’s chances of pulling a huge save out of the bag this week as it rolls out its new BlackBerry 10 operating system and a couple of new phones. It is a precipice moment in RIM’s history. There is going to be a $3.7m (£2.3m) 30-second Super Bowl TV spot and masses of other marketing activity to build buzz. It needs it. Read More »

As Blackberry gets ready to launch its long awaited Blackberry 10 (BB10) operating system, which is being rumoured to launch next week with the future of Research in Motion’s riding on it, Samsung has taken a potshot at it in this new ad. The Samsung ad makes a play to establish its phones as not only being for consumers, but for business users as well. In the spot we get to see a couple of Blackberry users who are made fun of and portrayed as older, decidedly uncool, and clinging to their devices and old fashion ways.  The message is clear: the cool kids have Samsung devices (and a love of unicorns) and they use them for both work and play. Read More »

Bloggers are inspired by what they see and do, so it’s no surprise that many of them want easy-to-use apps that will allow them to work on their blogs while they are on the go. The reasons for doing this vary from wanting to be the first one to publish a story to wanting to keep their friends, family and followers up to date on their daily activities as they happen. Luckily, there are many apps that allow bloggers to post, edit and upload all their content from anywhere they wander. But with over one million apps out there, which ones are best suited for blogging?

Many bloggers rely on WordPress for an easy, efficient and aesthetically pleasing way to post. It is no surprise that the free WordPress mobile app for BlackBerry allows users to easily edit, upload and update posts and media. Bloggers can also read, approve and reply to comments. With its range of features, well-known interface and ease of use, WordPress is one of the best apps for mobile bloggers. Read More »

Twitter has become the critical tool for brands. According to Simply Measured, “95% of the world’s top brands use Twitter”. Customers know this, and now expect brands to engage with them on the network, not just broadcasting advertising bumph. For some brands, this has meant creating a specialist handle for customer queries.

Simply Measured have conducted some analysis, and say that 23% of top brands now have “dedicated customer service handles”. However, only 15% of brands have dedicated customer service handles tweeting 10 or more times a day, indicating that perhaps people still go to the main corporate account to lodge their complaint. This is a problem for brands, who use dedicated handles so that they can deal with complaints without tarnishing the overall messaging.

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Twenty-three percent of the top 100 brands enable consumer outreach and engagement via mobile and social networks using phones, smartphones and tablets, according to a new report from Brand Keys.

Apple and Amazon dominate. You have to go to number 12 on the list before you are not dealing with a tech brand that has a natural fit into mobile.

The 16^th annual loyalty leaders gives the loyalty rankings for the top 100 brands out of 598 brands assessed in 83 industry categories in the 2012 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index.

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Picture yourself in this situation – you are wheelchair bound and want to go out to a restaurant in London.

Did you know that 300,000 people in the city face situations like this everyday? If you are mobility challenged, you’ll need to phone ahead and check on whether, or not, the restaurant you have in mind can accommodate you.

Step in Blue Badge Style to the picture, and you’ve now got a website and app that can tell you what restaurants in London are the best for disability access, as well as hotels, pubs, shops and more. Read More »

Sometimes owning a Blackberry can make you feel like a second class smartphone citizen. While the rest of the world (okay, Android and Apple) whiz along with their new apps there is not a great deal happening in the Blackberry App store.

One bright spot is that the social apps for Blackberry in Facebook and Twitter have always been good and now they are getting better. Not just improvements on the mobile front  there is a new version of TweetDeck too.

At the same time it is being reported that Twitter has acquired video-sharing start-up Vine. Read More »

More changes at Twitter. Yesterday a new version of Twitter for BlackBerry with changes including when you expand a Tweet to see the details view you can see images from pic.twitter.com in full resolution and RIM maps for geolocated Tweets. Twitter has also made it easier to see how a single Tweet fits into a broader conversation from the details view with previous Tweets and replies. Read More »